I've been toying with the idea of building my own electric moto. Even got a spare rolling chassis waiting...
But it's a slightly larger frame intended to perhaps hold more battery packs and potentially hit the road for dual sports but longer range is like the electric vehicle holy grail... there's always a weight and cost compromise!

How are you dealing with the waterproofing?
I noticed you tiptoed around those mud puddles last year in the video...
Obviously the controllers and such need protection, but what about the motor?
Is a brushed motor more susceptible to moisture damage?

As a very belated update,the YZ has its gas motor back in. Its nice how similar the handling is between the two setups. I'm not willing to add all the extra weight to get decent trail range, so I'm going to put the same electric parts in a trials chassis. The changes I made to the controller should work well for trials riding.

The YZ had almost no water protection, it would be necessary for anything ridden off road regularly. I'd expect dust to be bad for the brushes too.
It's fun building, good luck. If you're willing to get the bike up to DS or ADV weight then you'll get much better range.

The CRF looks really nice. Their packaging is impressive. Two parallel motors must be awesome, hopefully it works better for them than on the Motocycz IOM bike.

I have a friend that is quite knowledgeable in the electric bike propulsion deal.

If you want I can give you his email.

I talked to the dude that has the electric class one buggy, he should be running it in the upcoming NORRA race.

-John

Hi John,

I have seen endless sphere, lots of good ideas there.

Always good to talk to people, if you'd send me his email that'd be great. Unfortunately I've got some plans for this bike but no time to fit them it. But avoiding potential mis-steps would be really nice.

I was thinking of trying some different cells, and now that A123 has gone bankrupt I may have no choice.

Wow Luke, very nice! wonderful documentation on what you did and the problems and solutions you came up with. E bikes are still evolving some, it's really a shock to hear that A123 has gone bankrupt, they were the cell of choice for serious big scale RC model aircraft.

Some random thoughts from someone who's been in the RC hobby and has made a few DIY electric power systems for small model airplanes.

The brushed motor you used , was it rare earth magnets or Ferrite? there's a bit of efficiency gains, small, but significant to using Neodym or Cobalt over Ferrite.

A lot of what has happened in the past 12 years in RC has been the flood of cheap and relatively well designed brushless DC motors, the brushless controllers are now using a sense circuit off of the power output that detects the motor poles/magnets and synchs the controller up to the motor. They still haven't made the initial application of power on these motors smooth enough to work well for vehicles yet, ( I believe this to be true..) So the best bet for BL vehicle motors will have sensors in addition to the 3 power leads, I'm suspecting that this is what is mostly available off the shelf for brushless powered E-vehicle motors.

Most BL motors are form of 3 phase AC synchronous using rare earth magnets, they've gotten to the point where the designs can be made to turn just about any power output and RPM needed. You're probably well versed in the variety of motors available for E-bike conversions, so don't mind me just thinking out loud.

Have you thought of changing to a lighter form factor like a sturdy suspended MTB? You might increase the run times and not have to resort to such a large motor. Considering what you've achieved maybe the trials bike is the best compromise for weight?

quite awesome, subscribed.

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We're here because of a love most exestential. (toothy)

I actually don't know what sort of magnets are in the motor. I just know it has lots of power for its weight.

I avoided brushless motors because they didn't seem to offer any performance advantages and the drive system is way more complex. The complexity isn't such a big deal if you're going to stick with a puchased controller, but it is if you want to modify it like I did.